Can you drown a fish? (person)

On the idea of drowning fish...
My mom, the grammarian, often found herself sputtering when she'd become angry enough. She'd yell at us kids, confuse our names, spout enraged nonsense statements composed mainly of four syllable words, arcane phrases or Catholic threats of damnation.
My brother was one of those kids who have a zillion cages of critters and tanks of fish. He was a little lazy, however, and on occasion would be less than fastidious about cleaning the tanks. I heard her in his room one day, hollering at him to clean the fish tanks. As she stepped from his room, she turned back to deliver one last threat. "If you don't keep those tanks clean, I'm going to drown all your fish!"
Both of us knew better than to laugh.